Fantastic Lists and Where to Find Them: Chapter Four

This particular series of articles explores unique lists and trends developing in the competitive Warhammer 40k meta. The focus is on interesting lists that performed unusually well and/or being played unexpectedly by top level players.

Now that LVO 2019 is out of the way we finally get to live in a world we never thought was possible, a world where every army has a Codex (or beta) released all within one edition. Now we can look forward to a world where no more new codexes or armies come out…right… well of course not, we all know a new Space Marine codex is around the corner to start the sad cycle all over again. At least for March 2019 we can live in denial of inevitable. So the follow lists give us a preview of things to come as Ad-Mech make a fantastic comeback with a big help from Chapter Approved 2018.

Jason’s list from this Southern California GT, was a mixed combo of both new and old school. Standing out, is the return of Conscripts creating a shield to protect Mortars, but most importantly all the Ad-Mech shooting this army has. Beyond the Conscripts Jason uses a new kind of hammer unit with the Breachers, who can eat Vehicles alive either in Assault or Shooting. The really odd ball units though are the Onager Dunecrawlers, who can best be explained by the Icarus arrays designed perfectly against most competitive Eldar lists. This list relies on the massive point reductions from Chapter Approved, making Ad-Mech one of the best and cheapest Gunline armies in the game, without relying on Castellan to work.

Traveling to the land of Stockport England we encounter Bethany’s Ad-Mech list which is quite different from Jason’s. There is a lot of things going on with this army. The linchpin though doesn’t exactly standout: Tech-Priest Manipulus. The Dragoons reliably get into Assault to hold up whatever opposing melee threat is present, while the Destroyers reach out with extended range to delete any ranged threats all thanks to Manipulus. The Rangers fill things out with lucky sniper shots and plinking damage where needed. What makes this list really special is the use of Dark Talons, you can see just how nasty added these flyers really is. Assuming the GT was using the Bolter Beta rules this is screen clearing at its best, making a large holes for those Dragoons. Then you have the table blocking potential, acting as a de-facto screen for the Destroyers. The Rift Cannon is just gravy at this point, making this list one underrated alpha strike army.

The last Ad-Mech list takes us back to American and Ohio where Michael’s uses familiar themes, but splashes in another rising army in the mix to maximize the damage output. Manipulus is back and still buffing, but we have Ironstriders making a rare appearance taking advantage again of Chapter Approved. This time though we see the use of Servitor Maniple with Servitors hiding out to heal/resurrect any fallen Destroyers. The secret sauce though for this list is using the all-comers units from the Deathwatch. The Deathwatch can also Deep Strike anywhere, keeping the pressure on the enemy while the Ad-mech pick high value targets apart with tons of multi-damage weapons. Finally, you have the classic Imperial Guard CP farm and head scratching Officer of the Fleet.